Want, Take, Have
by lurknomore
Summary: Zach and Kendall. Three looks into Zach's head over the course of his stormy relationship with Kendall. Starts in November, 2004 and continues to October, 2006.
1. Chapter 1: Want

**October, 2004 **

_ Author Note: This takes place shortly after Zach and Kendall's confrontation about her paying Ethan's bail. _

Zach sat in his darkened condo, contemplating the dregs of his third – fourth?- Scotch.

He'd lost track. Not like him at all.

"_Oh, and from one sad person to another -- next time you feel lonely, don't go scouring the jails. Give me a call. I'll make you feel like a woman."_

It was simple. Well, it had been simple.

He wanted Kendall away from Ethan.

He hadn't analyzed why it was so important to him because it was so obvious why. Ethan had to be protected from the Cambias legacy. Once Ethan believed he wasn't a Cambias, he would have no reason to stay in Pine Valley, and he would be safe. Mission accomplished.

Kendall was a complication he didn't need or expect. She gave Ethan something Zach couldn't dismiss – a reason to stay. A slender, mercurial, gorgeous reason, who was scarily volatile, but still the sexiest woman Zach had run across in years.

Ethan evidently thought so, too. And that made her dangerous to Ethan and Zach's plans for his future. So Ethan and Kendall's… whatever it was… had to end.

That, as they say, was that. Ipso facto, ergo sum, forever and ever. Amen.

Since his reasons were so logical, he'd been able to ignore his irritation at seeing Kendall with Ethan.

He sipped more scotch and admitted that irritation was probably too mild a word.

Hate was a better word. Pure, visceral hate. He hated that Kendall was with his son.

He had fooled himself into believing it was because he didn't like Kendall. She was bad news. Sure, he believed _now_ that she hadn't killed Michael. Bianca's passionate defense of Kendall and his own observation convinced him that, whatever Kendall's faults, she loved her sister, would kill for her sister, and had risked her freedom and her life in a desperate bid to save Bianca. Admirable. Unfortunately, her capacity for love and sacrifice were only part of the picture – she was also selfish, needy, and still hung up on Ryan Lavery. She was a mess, and the boy deserved better.

Or so he told himself.

"_Give me a call. I'll make you feel like a woman."_

She'd stood there, facing him down, defending Ethan and her involvement with him. He threw every thing he could think of at her to get her to back off, and she didn't break. No; she raised her chin, flashed those fabulous eyes at him, and told him to jump in a lake. Asked him why the hell it was any of his business. Started wondering out loud why he cared so much.

Damn her.

Damn him.

And damn Ethan, as well.

"_I'll make you feel like a woman."_

He drained his glass and refilled it. What the hell had possessed him to say something so stupid? He knew better. Zach knew that words had power. He'd learned that lesson at his father's knee. That's why he always used them so carefully.

One ill-considered parting shot (and several scotches) later, he was tormenting himself with visions of Kendall. Memories of Kendall trying to pump him for information, or smiling at him when he found her earring. Kendall begging him to help her get even with Ryan.

Now the memories were replaced with visions of Kendall wrapped in his arms. Kendall screaming his name while she came. He was wondering what she tasted like, what she felt like – what she would look like as he took them both over the edge.

He wanted to go across the thing, rip her out of Ethan's arms, carry her back to his place and find out exactly how close his fantasies were to the reality.

Now that this particular Pandora's box was open, Zach was honest enough with himself to admit that he had wanted her since they'd first met. He loved his dream of Maureen, but something in Kendall called to him. And it wasn't solely her looks. He'd met women more beautiful; he'd slept with several, and employed a lot more.

What caught him was her passion- the fire and reckless abandon she showed those she loved. Kendall didn't count cost, and that was a quality Zach understood and respected.

Who was he kidding? He craved it.

He even understood her need for revenge against Ryan and Greenlee. God knows his fantasies about Hayward were dark. As a young man, he hadn't just run away from his father, he'd made him bleed. Even at eighteen he'd known the best way to inflict pain. Kendall's attempts at payback were paltry by comparison to his. She always ended up hurting herself more than her intended victim.

He remembered the time Paul Kramer showed up and Kendall wanted to rip him in two. Ethan stopped her and pulled her back from what Kendall called her 'scary place'. Even at the time, Zach had been disappointed. He wanted to watch her tear Kramer apart. Hell, he wanted to help. Or kill the guy himself while Kendall watched.

"_I hope that didn't upset you too much."  
"No. No, not at all. Actually, now I have a concept of what it looks like when I go psycho. Only you go very quiet, and scary, and lethal."_

She hadn't been afraid of him. She'd been thrilled. Then Ethan got her to leave. What would have happened if Ethan hadn't been there? What would he and Kendall have done to Kramer that day in Bianca and Miranda's names?

He wondered if there was some sort of genetic call from Cambias to Kane. Michael, Ethan and he - all drawn to Erica and her daughters: Michael to destroy, Ethan to bond with, and he to - what? Protect? Make restitution for Michael's sins? Three Cambias men, three Kane women, and three powerful and fundamentally different reactions. A cosmic case study in nature vs. nurture.

For the Kanes as well, he mused. Erica wanted to fight them, Bianca wanted to forgive them, and Kendall evidently wanted to screw them.

Well, not him, but certainly Michael and Ethan.

Although the more he thought about that day in his office, the more he wondered what might have happened if Ethan hadn't been there. What he and Kendall would have done to each other once they were done with Kramer.

Or even, God help him, what would have happened earlier today if it hadn't been so obvious that she had just climbed out of his son's arms.

It was one thing to deny the boy his Cambias heritage. Zach could easily justify that. But stealing his woman because he wanted her himself? That was an act worthy of Michael or the old man. Zach was better than that.

Well, he wanted to be better than that.

More than he wanted her.

Or so he wanted to believe.

But what he really wanted, most of all, was another drink.

Zach picked up the empty decanter and wanted.


	2. Chapter 2: Take

Summer, 2005

"_Good morning. Told you I'd be back."  
"What do you want, Zach?"  
"I want you to marry me."_

When the idea first occurred to him, he dismissed it immediately as insane.

But it kept returning. So he worried it, like a dog with a bone. And the longer he played with the notion, the less insane it became.

It seemed simple, almost. Elegant. Disturbingly logical.

Kendall wanted revenge. He wanted many things: to teach Ethan a lesson; to end his own pathetic attempts at reuniting with Maria; to prevent Cambias from destroying any one else.

"_I'm not going to hurt Kendall. I'm going to pick her up, dust her off, and help her take aim."_

When he'd finally given in to his inner voices and proposed, he'd given Kendall many reasons to marry him – except the one that she'd refuse to believe: that he wanted to make amends. Marrying him would give Kendall some of her own back. She had been so desperate to believe in Ethan and the love he offered, and so furious and broken when she learned the boy was lying. Once again she had thrown herself out there without holding anything back, and once again she'd gotten her heart stomped on as payment. He'd tried to warn her, more than once, but she hadn't listened to him.

Not that he could blame her. He told Kendall once he'd torn his ticket with Ethan; he'd never had one with her to tear. Their initial bonding over Bianca and Ethan was long gone. Hard to believe, now, that she was the first person he called on when he arrived in Pine Valley; or that he was who she ran to when she wanted Ryan's head on a platter.

Well, he'd earned her distrust. His desperation to get Ethan out had overruled every other instinct he had. And God knew he wasn't anyone's white knight, especially Kendall's. Her taste ran to self-proclaimed heroes like Lavery. He was too gray and too self aware for her. But Zach knew that the Cambias men owed the Kane women a debt – one that he and Ethan had managed between them to compound to almost staggering proportions in Kendall's case. Ethan's desire for revenge and his own bloody-mindedness had almost cost Kendall, Greenlee and Lily their lives. Greenlee had Lavery, and Lily had Jackson; all Kendall had at the end of that fiasco was a broken heart. Offering her a chance at payback and a safe haven to lick her wounds wasn't just a clever tactic; he and Ethan owed it to her.

"_You pretended to marry my brother. You almost married my son, which makes me the only Cambias you haven't been engaged to. And I got to tell you, I feel a little left out."_

The fact that he dreamed about her – hot, sweaty dreams that left him aching and wanting - didn't matter. Hell, it made her revenge all the sweeter, even if she never knew it. Ethan's penance was not having Kendall at all; his was having her in name only.

He'd told Kendall she could do what she wanted when she wanted, and he thought he'd meant it. Of course, he'd undercut that promise by giving her a wedding ring with its own weather system – a not so subtle sign to most men that Kendall was not available. And any man who started paying too much attention to her during her visits to the casino mysteriously found his credit drying up.

"_I knew you had bad taste in men, but at least they were men. This is ridiculous."  
" All right, you know what? You're jealous."  
"No, no, you can teach whoever you want whenever you want, but just so we understand that this open marriage policy applies to both of us."  
"No, no, that's cool. I'm down with that. Anyone I know?"  
"Uh-"  
_

He still didn't know what he would have done if she'd continued sleeping with the little Chandler. He liked to think he wouldn't have gone back on his word. He had a sneaking suspicion, though, that he would have engineered a breakup if Junior's petulant rages hadn't ended it so soon after the wedding.

He was surprised – stunned - when Kendall decided to stay married to him after he told her of his decision to drop his lawsuit to win back Cambias Industries. He'd fully expected her to kick him out of her suite and her life for good. But, some crazy Kendall logic had prevailed, and she'd stayed with him. Zach didn't believe her vows that she was done with love anymore than Erica did. But if she wanted to use him as a temporary shield while she rebuilt her confidence, she could have him. She'd earned it.

The true irony was that Zach found himself reaping unexpected benefits from their ridiculous pact. Kendall once again started turning to him. She came to him for advice, for help, for reassurance. Even, it seemed, a guarded kind of friendship. And he wouldn't – couldn't - turn her away. Because in a still, small, part of himself, Zach knew the truth.

Kendall was his. She just didn't know it yet. And Zach swore to himself that she would never find out.

Because taking what you wanted – when you had no intention of really having it – wasn't easy. But _having_ what you wanted? That could be deadly.

Because Zach always lost what he had.

And Kendall had already lost enough.


	3. Chapter 3: Have

**October, 2006**

It was done.

Zach sat in his darkened office and contemplated the end of his second marriage to Kendall. Two divorces in less than a year: he and Kendall between them might actually do something the much-married Erica Kane never had. If Kendall kept up her current pace, she might even beat her mother's total of ten weddings. She could burn through Ryan a couple of times easily enough, and JR would probably be next.

Zach shifted in his chair and picked up his glass of scotch. No, not Junior. Not a chance in hell. Kendall might forgive the pathetic fool for what he'd done to her; but she would never forgive what he'd done to Spike. She was as fierce in defense of her son as Zach had known she would be. So JR was off the list. Aidan, then; or some Pine Valley newcomer. His fingers tightened as he considered the likely additions: Kendall Hart Slater Slater Lavery Devane Clooney Pitt Lavery...

The crack of the shattering tumbler shoved the thought of Kendall's future husbands to the back of his mind. As he cleaned up the mess, he realized it didn't matter who was next. All that mattered was the surety that she was never again going to be a Slater.

"_Your mom asked me to marry her. I had to turn her down. Because you're the only one for me."_

When he'd told Kendall that in jest, he'd no idea how prophetic a statement it would turn out to be. He'd known he wanted her; but he'd thought he could keep it under control. He was at peace with the idea that he was a temporary haven for her to rest and regain her self –esteem. He told himself that his need to help her heal far outstripped any desire to have her in his bed.

What a fool he'd been. Or had he been lying to himself, even then? Zach needed to be in control, but Kendall had always confounded him. When he manipulated her into their first marriage, he thought he understood her. How wrong he had been: every day she surprised him. He hadn't begun to fathom Kendall's true nature or how much she would come to mean to him.

He told her once that he was in awe of her devotion to Greenlee; that was an understatement. He was undone by her: her fire, her determination, her willingness to give up everything, including her own child, to help her friend. Even now, a year later, she could surprise him. Giving, selfish, strong, insecure, loving, fierce, terrified: Kendall Hart was a mass of contradictions, and he – Zach Slater, the man who knew everything - still never knew for sure which way she'd jump. All he could count on was that she would never put herself first, no matter how many times she told him she was a selfish bitch. And he knew in his soul that Kendall was what he'd been looking for his whole life, without even realizing it: his perfect mate, in all her imperfect glory.

Even the sure knowledge that she was everything he'd ever wanted (and never thought to get) hadn't prevented him from destroying their life together. His father would be proud. And how Michael would laugh.

He let her go the first time because he thought it was what she wanted. Bianca made him see his mistake, and he won her back. Kendall took the leap with him – until she was confronted with incontrovertible proof of how far Zach was willing to go to protect her, regardless of her wishes. He'd thought that was it, but she's surprised him again. By some miracle – and Zach didn't believe in miracles, he was too good a gambler to put any faith in them – Kendall had found her way back to him not once but twice. First she'd forgiven him for the blackout, and given him a second chance with her and her child. And then by the grace of whatever God had been watching, she and Spike survived Junior's misplaced homicidal urges.

He had been gifted with another shot. And he'd sworn to her and to himself when she came back to him that they would never be parted again. That he would hold what they had found and let nothing come between them.

What a fool he was. The day she awoke, they were already on a collision course with doom. Ryan, Madden, Dixie, Tad and Kendall herself all played a part in it, but Zach knew he was the sole architect of their destruction.

He had everything he'd ever wanted, and he'd thrown it away. There was no way he'd get another chance.

Not that he deserved one.

"_This will never work."  
"Not a chance in the world."_

He hated being right.

Well, he'd given her the last thing he could - the only thing she still wanted from him: her freedom. The papers were signed, delivered, and even now in Kendall's hands. He wondered idly how she'd felt when she opened them. Relieved? Surprised?

He turned impatiently at the soft click of the door opening.

Kendall stood in the doorframe. "Zach?" she said.

He stared at her, stunned. All he could think was that she'd confounded him again. And then, as he watched her slowly make her way towards him, he realized the full truth of it. Kendall was as caught as he: that having him – having each other – was their only choice.

And then he smiled.


End file.
